According to the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse , more than 200 million records containing sensitive personal information, such as credit cards and social security numbers, have been exposed through security breaches in the U.S. over the past three years. Research from the

Ponemon Institute

The FailSafe agent can be installed on an encrypted Hitachi hard drive. In the event of laptop theft, if the FailSafe agent is removed by the perpetrator, the authorized owner will be able to remotely re-install the FailSafe agent in the compromised system and take further steps to ensure integrity of the data on the laptop.

“Increasingly, ” said Masaru Masuda, director of product planning, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, “leading notebook PC manufacturers depend on Hitachi to gain a competitive advantage through our hard drives, which include 128-bit AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) technology to protect consumers’ valuable and sensitive information. Now, all of our 2007 and 2008 models of 2.5-inch mobile hard drives can be enabled at the factory to utilize powerful AES-128 encryption engine, which is part of the drive electronics SOC (System-on-Chip).

“While laptops and notebooks continue to grow in popularity, there is a clear need to provide advanced protection to secure the sensitive files and data stored on them,” said Surendra Arora, VP of business development at Phoenix Technologies. “By partnering with laptop drive manufacturers such as Hitachi, we can help prevent data theft and associated crimes like identity theft by extending FailSafe protection to laptops which contain sensitive personal and professional information.”